Ghostwalker
by carpfish
Summary: "For a man who takes such pride in his science, Laurent has always had the most unhealthy habit of clinging onto ghosts." In which Laurent is a man of science, denies the truth, chases ghosts, and waits forever. / ambiguous fatherhood, character death
1. Father Dearest

The house is fraught with jagged shadows and dark corners, and Laurent steels himself with all the bravery in his frail six year old body as he sees the apparitions of monsters and Risen out of the corners of his eyes. The floor is cold when his feet touch the floor, and he slides out of his bed, tucking his blanket back over his pillow, before heading for the door. The creak of the floorboards and the rattling of his closet door do nothing to comfort him. Laurent swallows. His pulse is hard and fast in his chest, reverberating in his ears like the rat-a-tat of a galloping horse's hooves upon cobblestones.

Laurent's father had once told him that he need not fear anything, for his parents would always love and protect him. Laurent has no doubts of his mother's love, no matter how awkward and roundabout she may be in expressing it. However, she has always stayed awake into the early hours of the morning, too engrossed in her research to notice the hours slipping away until the first rays of sunlight crept through the windows of her laboratory. Thus it had been Laurent's father who would comfort him in his times of fear, through night terrors and supernatural scares. Laurent hasn't seen his father in nearly three months, and judging by the way his mother averts her gaze and presses her lips into a stern line every time Laurent inquires as to the time of his return, Laurent gets the feeling that his father will not be coming home in a very long time.

It's easy to locate his mother's laboratory, the only room in the house still lit at such late hours. In the pitch-black corridor, Laurent sees the flicker of candlelight, a small dancing wave of illumination leaking out from the crack of the laboratory door, and heads towards it, pulled like a ship to a lighthouse. The door opens with a soft scratching sound as the warped wood scrapes against the floor as Laurent peeks his head through the gap, half-fearing the consequences of interrupting his mother's research. His mother whips around in his direction immediately, shoulders tense and fingertips cracking with magic ready for release, before she registers who the intruder is, and relaxes. Clearing her throat and sitting up in her chair, she raises an eyebrow in an inquisitive manner. "Laurent, what incites your arousal from slumber at so nocturnal an hour?" She asks. Most of the time, even with his wide vocabulary, while Laurent usually understands the meaning of his mother's questions, he only recognizes about half of the words used. This time, her words are more simple, perhaps an indication of the late hour.

The boy shuffles his feet as he enters the laboratory, and he hesitates to answer, unsure of how his mother would react to his concerns. This is the first time that he has come to her for conciliation in such times, and he hopes that he will not receive an unexpected reaction. In a soft voice, he murmurs his answer once, too hushed for his mother to hear, and she reprimands him sharply, telling him to speak up. When he repeats his words, his voice is significantly shriller than he remembers it being.

"Mother, I believe there to be an apparition of the supernatural order within my room, and am finding its presence most unconducive to my rest," he informs her, attempting to sound as formal and non-terrified as possible. He braces himself for his mother's response, and rightfully so. Mother is a woman of science, Laurent thinks, as he should be. She makes no effort to hide her disbelief of his claim, and it is apparent upon her sharp features. Laurent is hit by a wave of crippling shame at his own childishness and the illogic of his fears.

Laurent's mother sighs once, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and middle finger, before flipping the pages of the tome on her desk and returning to her work. "Laurent, I believe I have told you previously that specters and phantasms of such fantasy are merely the delusional machinations of one's own imagination, and should not be taken heed of. These apparitions which you speak of will not harm you. You'd do best to return to sleep, my son." The corner of mother's lip twitches in the way that it does whenever she does not know to react in a situation, and uses a facade of stoicism and academic detachedness to conceal her weakness. Laurent blames her not for what may appear to be a cold rebuke- he and his father had always understood that mother was not the most adept at comforting others, and they had never once held her nature against her.

Laurent returns to his bed without another word, and the door of the closet seems to rattle even more ominously, the squeaking floorboards making jest of his cowardice. Crawling beneath his blanket and pulling the sheets up to his chin, Laurent focuses on the inhale and exhale of his own respiratory system and on the knowledge that for every time sets, due to the rotation of the earth, it will always rise again. When he told his father about the ghosts, his father would always sit beside him and stay with him until he fell asleep, acting as a ward against all terrors and evils. If Laurent listens carefully, he can hear the clink of glass vials and the scratch of quill against parchment coming from his mother's laboratory.

Laurent falls asleep to these sounds, and the sincere wish that his father would return from the battlefield.


	2. Mother Dearest

One morning, Laurent wakes up to the clamor of breaking glass and dropped books. He rushes to the source of the sound, his mother's laboratory, and sees her muttering angrily as she sweeps up the remains of a broken test tube with her bare hand. A crumpled piece of parchment lies on her work bench, looking strangely out of place amongst all the apparatus. Behind her is a large bag packed with tomes, notebooks, and provisions. Laurent rubs his bleary eyes with the heel of his palm, trying to process the situation. "Mommy? Is there something wrong?"

His mother is caught off guard by his presence, and gives a small yelp as she cuts herself on the glass in her surprise. It's not like his mother to be so careless, Laurent dimly registers at the same time as he realizes that the reason why the world looks so blurry is because he's forgotten to put on his glasses. "Laurent, you're awake," She says, voice slightly more tense than her usual level observations, her words coming a bit more rushed. "Good. I was just about to call for you." She brushes her injured hand against the side of her robes, and the blood leaving no stain against the black fabric.

Laurent's mother gives up on cleaning the glass, and stands up to face him, pushing her drooping glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Chrom has issued a mandate calling for the shepherds to assemble due to the crises of late. We will be departing for the capital within the hour. I suggest you pack any necessities post-haste." Laurent knows how much his mother enjoys planning out her activities, so the short notice of this departure betrays the graveness of the situation.  
Laurent stumbles back to his room as quickly as possible. Much to his mother's surprise, he returns to her side moments later, this time with a small scrap of cloth and a jar of healing salve in his hands. "You've cut yourself," He mutters, surprisingly plain. "This is to prevent infection and possible future complications." That being said, he takes her hand in his, then disinfects and bandages the ugly red cut that spreads across her palm. His mother is strangely quiet throughout the treatment. When Laurent is finished, he looks his mother in the eye. "Mother, please be careful," he advises, before leaving to pack his belongings.

They travel as fast as they can, Miriel sparing no time or expense. The trip from their rural cottage to the capital would take a week's trip on horseback, by normal circumstances; Miriel aims to arrive within four days. No matter how much Laurent probes, his mother refuses to tell him the reason for her haste, but as they travel through the country, the more refugees and injured Laurent sees. It doesn't take much deductive reasoning to figure out that there is something very, very wrong going on. There are soldiers and mercenaries present in every village they pass through, and Laurent wonders if he might find his father among these people. His mother gives him no time to ask any questions, constantly urging him to hastily continue their travel. Laurent can't help but find it troubling that his mother, for whom scientific inquiry and curiosity are the paragon of all virtues, seems determined on keeping him in the dark.

They don't mean to stumble into a battlefield. In a bout of disastrous misfortune, the town in which they rest for the night is attacked right before the crack of dawn. Judging by the level of chaos and commotion outside, Laurent knows that it can't be a simply brigand raid, unless the town were being ransacked by a veritable army of brigands. His mother rushes out of bed to defend the civilians with a tome in hand, with explicit orders that Laurent should not approach anywhere near the battlefield. Laurent can do nothing to stop her, but just before she steps out of the inn, he calls out for her, causing her to hesitate. "Mother, your hat!" In her haste, his mother had forgotten one of her most prized possessions, but Laurent can see that she has no patience or time to fetch it.

"You'll have to safeguard it for me until my return," is her terse response, before she rushes out the door.

It's late morning by the time the battle ends. Laurent is found by a soldier from the emergency relief force curled up in the corner of the inn, clutching onto his mother's hat with all his childish might two inches away from the charred remains of a Risen. One of the monsters had broken in during the attack, and it had been the first time that Laurent had ever seen such a creature. If he hadn't been able to summon up one of the simple battle enchantments that his mother had taught him, then he surely would have been dead.  
When Laurent asks the survivors of the ambush whether they'd seen his mother, they go quiet. He continues to describe her in more detail, recounting her crimson hair, her enchanter's robes, and her glasses, but one of the townsmen stops him mid-sentence. Crouching down to look him in the eye, the man places a hand on Laurent's shoulder and gently, with a pitying gaze, tells Laurent that his mother is most likely dead, like so many of the others who had fought against the Risen.

Of course, Laurent refuses to believe the man's empty words without sufficient evidence. His mother is a hero, a Shepherd of Ylisse, and he finds it impossible to believe that she'd be defeated so easily. Ignoring the concern and offers of protection from other adults, Laurent heads to the battlefield, determined to draw his own conclusions. Logically speaking, the only true evidence of his mother's death would be to see her corpse with his own eyes.

Laurent spends the day digging through debris, tossing aside broken swords and spears, fervently searching for his mother. If he investigates every corner of this battlefield, then surely he will find her, dead or alive. He finds corpses of every kind; some of them risen, some distinctly human. Some of them look as if they were sleeping, while others died with grimaces of pain and horror on their faces. At the end of the day, Laurent's findings are inconclusive- he finds not a single body with red hair and a gash across their palm like his mother does. She's alive, he knows it to be so. If he cannot find her dead, the by process of elimination, she must be alive. These are the words that Laurent keeps repeating to himself over and over in his mind, the only mantra that keeps him from breaking down at this point. His mother has to be alive, somewhere. However, if there's a dark corner of his mind that whispers that if he can't find her, even if his mother isn't dead, Laurent is still very much alone.

When the sun finally sets, Laurent is alone on his hands and knees in the middle of a field of corpses, and he cries.


End file.
